Please welcome Mark McMillan back as a returning contributor to the HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board. Markisco-founder of Talent Function, where he combines executive coaching expertise with ten years of recruitment software industry experience. He started his software career for the Oracle Corporation and later joined BrassRing as a Director of Strategy and Business Development. Full Bio…

The Avatars in Our Heads

by Mark McMillan

On October 6th, at around 5pm PST, I excitedly jumped to the Apple website to see if the latest version of the mobile operating system had been released. When it comes to the release of new Apple products, I’m a bit like a kid on Christmas morning. I don’t just drink the Apple Kool-aid — I bath in it. The excitement drained from my face as soon as the Steve Job’s memorial page filled the screen. His death wasn’t a surprise, but it was still a tragically sad moment.

Even though I never actually met Steve Jobs, I had a relationship with him. You see, I carry around my very own projected, Steve Jobs avatar. He is a voice that I consult with in the privacy of my own mind. These avatar relationships are fascinating, and worthy of examination. For most of us, our own inner avatars can be more influential than the real people themselves.

Over the last decade, I’ve watched every Steve Job’s product announcement. I was captivated by him. In my mind’s eye, I have a composite image of Steve Jobs wearing his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck. I regularly summon by Steve Job’s avatar whenever I’m looking at a new software product. What would Steve Job’s think about this? And, I have to tell you, my inner Steve Job’s voice is pretty hard on enterprise software products. “Where’s the soul? Where’s the art?” “You call this innovation?” Where’s the innovation? He motivates me to challenge the status quo. He’s my friend. He tells me to be inspired. Me and my Steve avatar — we just get each other.

Beyond the famous avatars are the voices of important people in our lives — our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, bosses, and teachers are common voices. These internalized voices can be permanent fixtures in our head, even after they are dead. These voices reveal themselves all of the time. Sometimes they are positive and sometimes they keep us from something that we want. They can also be debilitating.

As a practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), I work with client’s to discover and re-program these voices. NLP is the study of how humans make meaning out of the information that they experience through their five senses. We humans have programs for creating memories and assigning meaning to events of our lives. We store pictures, voices, and feelings in our minds that can have a profound influence on how we interact with the world around us. We are compulsive, meaning-making machines. Uncovering these old voices is a bit like an emotional archeological dig. A skilled NLP practitioner can read a person’s eye movements as a clue to when they are actually checking with one of their ancient avatars.

To illustrate my point, my Dad’s voice is one that I carry around with me all the time. When I was about 14 years old, I overheard my Dad making a comment to my mom that “I was lazy and needed to be pushed.” At the time I had enlisted my Mom’s help to get my Dad to back off our baseball training regime. He would require me to get up before school, around 5:30am, to practice pitching. I was tired of it and I asked my Mom to talk to him about it. Now the truth of the matter is that I was many things, but lazy was never one of them. But in that moment, I assigned meaning to that day – I decided that I was lazy. Now, it’s still a little emotional software bug that runs in the background when I’m afraid and I want to experience a familiar feeling. The funny thing is that I have talked to my Dad about this incident and he never thought that I was a lazy person. But despite all of that observed adult reality, on bad days, I still run the “Mark is lazy” program. With the help of my NLP practitioner, I have chipped away at this one and it doesn’t run quite so often.

The avatars in our life are complex and powerful. Their power often transcends intellectual knowledge. They can be both constructive and destructive. They are fascinating and they make us – us. What does this have to do with human resources?” Fortunately, my Steve Jobs avatar is on my shoulder with semi-frustrated expression. It’s about HUMAN resources right?

Mark McMillan

Co-founder of Talent Function, a consultancy whose mission is to facilitate the evolution of the corporate staffing function, MarkMcMillan combines Executive Coaching expertise with 10 years of recruitment software industry experience. He started his software career for the Oracle Corporation working with channel partners in North and South America. After a 2-year stint in Oracle Latin America, Mark transitioned to a sales engineering role. He spent two years selling Oracle applications to prospects in North America and Brazil and he participated in the introduction of Oracle’s first browser-based software release.
Convinced about the inherent value of the software-as-a-service delivery model, Mark joined BrassRing as a Director of Strategy and Business Development. During his tenure at BrassRing Mark was responsible for partnerships and strategic initiatives for the company. He was instrumental in BrassRing’s expansion to the recruitment outsourcing, public sector, and Asia-Pacific markets. Mark also made contributions to product strategy including the development of the “Talent Record” concept which remains as one of the primary organizing principles of Kenexa’s BrassRing-KRB software solutions.
Mark started his Executive Coaching career in 2007 with the California Leadership Center, a firm that has pioneered the “coaching” profession since 1989. Mark focuses on individual and team development for leaders in the Talent Acquisition industry. In the context of software implementations, Mark works with Executive Sponsors and project teams to build clarity and communication that will support effective change management.
Mark is an alumni of the University of Virginia where he received his BS and MS both in finance and accounting.
You can read Mark's posts on HRExaminer.com here.

This is an inspiring post — and I swear I’m not a spam robot just mouthing platitudes.

Consulting virtual people you respect is a great — and humbling — technique.

Yesterday on NPR, Terry Gross interviewed a poet. The poet read “My Best Friend,” a poem about consulting acquaintances who had passed on through the “frightening door” to the other side. They always counseled her to seek joy.

Recent Comments

Archives

Archives

HR Open Source

HR Open Source is a volunteer not-for-profit community bringing open source learning approaches to the global field HR and recruiting.

Our intention is transform the field of HR to become more strategic and innovative by democratizing access to ideas, education, and inspiration. Simply put, to make it easier for practitioners to access the peers, knowledge, and resources that they need to thrive - at zero cost.

Our long term aim is to develop a global network and knowledge bank of peer-contributed resources that will enable practitioners build better organizations and elevate the field together.